Prime Video is bringing one of its most recycled comedy formats to the United States, with Nick Kroll attached to host and executive produce the American version of LOL: Last One Laughing. Amazon adapted the show from the Japanese original Documental and has since launched 25 international versions.
The game is simple. Ten comics or comedic actors are placed in a room for six hours and told to do whatever it takes—improv, characters, bits, physical comedy or pure absurdity—to make a competitor laugh. Anyone who laughs is out.
Why Kroll is a deliberate pick
Kroll arrives with a track record across animation and sketch comedy: he created and voices Big Mouth, made Comedy Central’s Kroll Show and starred in Netflix’s Mating Season. He described the format as “pure joy” and said he has watched versions elsewhere. “I have loved this show in other countries and cannot wait to get the funniest people in the US together and watch them not laugh,” Kroll said.
Kroll’s dual role as host and executive producer also signals that Prime Video wants talent with creative ownership in the franchise, matching its local-host approach in other markets. Jenn Levy, head of nonfiction at Amazon MGM Studios, said Kroll’s “sharp wit and love of mischief” make him the right host, and added that asking people not to laugh around him “feels almost unfair.”
One format, many local hosts
The US edition joins a crowded local-host map:
- Graham Norton — Ireland
- Rebel Wilson — Australia
- Trevor Noah — South Africa
- Jimmy Carr — UK
- Jay Baruchel — Canada
- Eugenio Derbez — Mexico
- Michael “Bully” Herbig — Germany
- Philippe Lacheau — France
Why this matters for the business
For streamers, formats like this are partly a risk equation. The engine already works, so the creative lift shifts to local talent and host chemistry rather than proving a concept from scratch. The US series was greenlit in August. Ben Winston, Emma Conway and Eric Pankowski will executive produce, with Pankowski as showrunner, alongside Kroll and his Good At Business banner.
For media planners, the number worth watching is not a single opening-night figure but the clip flow. A format built on comics trying not to laugh tends to create short, talent-driven moments that can travel on social and feed a platform’s unscripted pipeline. The US version may matter most as a streamer’s test of how far one localised format can stretch before it stops feeling local.
Source: TheWrap
